Tag Archives: Warcraft

When it comes to professions in WoW, I’m not really big into them. My Warlock is an alchemist for convenient flasks and pots, and an engineer for the intellect cooldown. I have most professions maxed across various toons, but since I don’t care to have each profession on more than one character, I leave my newer alts without any professions.

All in one place.
Having professions be account-wide is an interesting take on the system, and I can see it working very well. Though there are flaws that would need to be ironed out first, which could have some negative impacts on professions themselves, like the removal of the profession bonuses, or the fact that the economy could take a hit since everyone has the ability to craft anything they need and gather the resources they need to make it – though this is combated by laziness.

If profession bonuses like the buffed flasks for alchemists or the cheaper and stronger gems that Jewel Crafters can make, then every raider is going to be forced or feel forced to max out EVERY profession so that they can benefit from all of the boosts they give.

The simple solution to this is to just remove the bonuses they give. All fixed, right? Well, maybe…but not exactly. Now you have to deal with the issue of professions not having enough incentive for people to max out, most people already feel like maxing two professions is enough of a grind, so unless you have some regular need for a particular profession I am under the impression that most people won’t care to take advantage of the system.

Another solution to account-wide professions and possible problems arising from the current incentives/bonuses would be changing them up to add variety with them and then changing the system so that you can only choose from a limited amount of bonuses at a time. The changes for variety would be necessary since with the exception of gathering and engineering, all the professions math out the roughly equal boosts, so the choice wouldn’t be boring and not even really matter.

Now I’m keen for this.
I went into this topic not really having much of an opinion on account wide professions. But now I’m actually really liking the idea. Sure the system would need some working out and the professions system probably needs some updates as a whole, something to liven it up and make the experience more enjoyable, rather than thinking the whole time “gosh I really just want this to be over and done with so that I never have to deal with it again.” But whether or not account-wide come or not, I want to see some changes to professions as a whole.

I started playing World of Warcraft sometime around October 2006. I would have had to of been 10 years old at the time. I remember my older brother coming home one day with a new game for the computer. He finished installing it and played it, I came up to him, interested in the game. Everything about it seemed magical, I had never seen a game like it before. I just sat there with him, watching my brother play the night elf hunter he had created, adventuring through the beautiful Teldrassil.

I asked him if I could play too, when he was done. He agreed and the next day he logged me into his trial account I created a Human Paladin. Immediately I realized how lost in this world I was, having never played an RPG before I didn’t know what quests where, I didn’t go off adventuring I just looked around and asked my brother what to do until I got an understand of where to go and what to do. When his trial account ended, we made a new account when my brother bought the game. Together we made new characters – he made another hunter and I made a warlock.

After a few weeks, our mum started to notice we were playing the game an awful lot. So to keep check on us and make sure we were playing in a safe online environment, she created her character and started playing as well.

…well, to make a long story short…

Eventually, my brother stopped playing WoW as he got older, though my mum and I still play and have been raiding together since Wrath of the Lich King. During our time playing WoW, my mum has had a heart attack, I came out as gay (to our guild as well), my mum and I have made a bunch of friends online in our guild and have even met some of them in real life as well. On top of that I have also just finished my final year at school – and I got the legendary cloak the same day as my graduation assembly.

I am not a social person – I like calm and quiet surroundings and I tend to not talk to people much – however, I am nowhere near as anti-social as I used to be, mostly because through the social aspect of WoW and raiding with my guild I have created a lot of my social skills. Without the friendly chatting and banter during raids and the casual conversations in guild chat, I don’t know what I would be like today. Having that environment in WoW where there were people I could chat with and hang out with really helped my issues with socializing.

I was also bullied in my early years of high school and WoW became a safe haven for me. It was my escape from reality when I could not handle reality anymore. If I felt really horrible or depressed, playing WoW distracted me from the real world and gave me the ability to be happy. And now, my escape has turned into my passion, I am a proud nerd and gamer.

I would have to say that is possibly one of the best things to have happened to me in my life (so far).